Sunday 16 August 2015

The Draka Basics

The "Draka basics" are listed on p. 64 of SM Stirling's Marching Through Georgia (New York, 1991):

Carlyle's Philosophy of Mastery;
Nietzsche's The Will to Power;
Fitzhugh's Imperial Destiny;
Gobineau's Inequality of Human Races;
Meditations of Elvira Naldorssen.

Here are five titles and five authors' names. However, Marching Through Georgia is an alternative history novel so how many of these items also exist in our timeline? Some we recognize, of course...

The link from Meditations... is to an extremely comprehensive list of fictional books which, I was pleased to learn, also includes The Earthbook Of Stormgate, part of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

I already knew of the Earthbook and of The Will To Power. However, I always make unanticipated discoveries when posting about texts by Anderson or Stirling.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I clicked on the link to the fictional MEDITATIONS OF ELVIRA NALDORSSEN and looked up the list given of the fictional works created by Poul Anderson. Unfortunately, that list is incomplete. I only needed to skim thru my copies of TRADER TO THE STARS and THE TROUBLETWISTERS to compile a longer list: an untitled extract from a writer named Le Matelot; COMMENTARIES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOAH ARKWRIGHT, by Vance Hall; AN INTRODUCTION TO SOPHONTOLOGY, by Noah Arkwright; an extract from the diary of Urwain the Wide Faring.

And let's not forget the quote to be found on pages 4 and 5 of Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson's EARTHMAN'S BURDEN (in "The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch) from the EMPLOYEES ORIENTATION MANUAL, by Adalbert Parr, Chief Cultural
Commissioner, Cultural Development Service, Foreign Ministry of the United Commonwealths. A comically pompous bit of bureaucratic prose!

Sean